The most recent serialization of Tell Me About Yourself is now complete.

You can read the new, improved edition of Tell Me About Yourself by buying the book.

You can read the first edition of Tell Me About Yourself on this blog, as follows (Follow each chapter sequentially through the dates after the opening entries for each chapter):

Introduction: Why Use Story in the Job Search?

CHAPTER 1: Telling Stories about Change

CHAPTER 2: The Quintessential You Story

CHAPTER 3: How to Develop Career-Propelling Stories

CHAPTER 4: Networking as Storytelling

CHAPTER 5: Resumes that Tell a Story

CHAPTER 6: Cover Letters That Tell a Story

CHAPTER 7: Portfolios that Tell a Story

CHAPTER 8: Interviews That Tell a Story

CHAPTER 9: Personal Branding as Storytelling

CHAPTER 10: Propel Your Career Through On-the-Job Storytelling

Epilogue

OR

You can read the first edition, page by page, here.

OR

You can read it through the Facebook fan page for the book.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

The current serialization of Tell Me About Yourself is almost complete. Just discovered these reviews on Amazon and thought I would share them:

Review by Steve Krizman for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

In her book, Tell Me About Yourself, Katharine Hansen provides actionable advice for incorporating storytelling in cover letters, resumes, job interviews, and conversations with the boss. As someone who is on the hiring end of the equation, I can vouch for the effectiveness of strategic storytelling (see my posts, What I look for in resumes and What I look for in cover letters).

Katharine, who writes my favorite blog on applied storytelling, interviewed job-seekers and studied reams of resumes while earning her doctorate. She supplies step-by-step story construction tips and illustrates her points with actual resumes and cover letters gathered in her research.

She clearly did an exhaustive literature search to gather a wide range of expert opinion on the subject. My only criticism is that Katharine could have synthesized the academic literature a bit more and taken a few risks by providing her own opinion.

Katharine puts the issue well for all of us, whether we are in the job market or are building our careers where we are: We should carefully nurture our own personal brand. And we know the best brands are those that evoke intrigue and emotion through the story that they tell.

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Review by Miriam Salpeter for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

“So, tell me about yourself?”

Is that not the most obvious interview question? The one that every job-seeker should anticipate and prepare to answer? Unfortunately, it may seem so obvious, many don’t spend the time they should focusing on how to answer it.

In fact, most aspects of the job search rely on being able to tell your own story:

Networking (the all important elevator pitch)

Your resume — connecting your accomplishments with the employer’s needs

Cover letter — another opportunity to sell your skills to a targeted employer

Portfolios — online opportunities to connect with people

Interviews — sealing the deal

On the job — to connect and advance

I highly recommend that job seekers take a look at Katharine Hansen’s … book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career.

Her book is organized into several sections:

Part I — Career-propelling story basics

Part II — Using storytelling in your job search

Part III — Continuous storytelling

Katharine explains how stories can help you get a job by demonstrating your personality, helping to make you memorable and establishing trust. People who know how to tell good stories can communicate their value proposition, which is key for job seekers and careerists.

This book helps you with every aspect of telling your story — from figuring out what the story should be through tips for how to recall stories stored in your brain! (For example, give your stories names.) It is full of samples of stories and many, many ideas that are critically useful for job seekers and all professionals.

If you’re engaged in a job search — or maybe you should be — don’t miss this great resource!

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Review by Tax Writer for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

This book was surprisingly fun to read, mainly because it’s full of true employee stories, which are always interesting. I think the book would have been more appropriately titled if it had something — anything — in the title about interviewing. Really, this book is about how to interview successfully and make yourself really memorable.

The book also has numerous examples of successful resumes, cover letters, bios, and other correspondence to help “sell” yourself to a prospective employer.

Here’s my take:

1. The book is an excellent book on interviewing, and also how prospective employees should present/introduce themselves to employers
2. The book is more suited to people who are trying to obtain a management, supervisory, or white-collar job. The author already assumes that you know the basics, (like, don’t show up in jeans and flip-flops). She assumes that you have some skills and education, so this isn’t a book for someone trying to get a job waiting tables. It’s geared towards working professionals.
3. The book’s best points are the cover letter tips and examples, as well as the story examples, of which there are many. She also goes over how to handle a termination with dignity so you don’t burn any bridges.

Overall, I think this is an excellent guide, especially for the price, which is quite reasonable for the material provided and the page count. I felt that the title was a poor choice, and maybe even a little misleading, but I don’t feel that’s enough of a reason to give this book less than 5 stars, considering the quality of the material.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

These days, it’s not easy for the jobless to stand out from one another. Even those lucky enough to land interviews have a tough time making themselves memorable to hiring managers. That’s why some individuals have turned to extreme job-hunting tactics.

From wearing sandwich boards that announce their job objective to sending singing telegrams into target companies, job seekers are getting pretty creative in their pursuit of jobs. And while these strategies certainly get job seekers noticed, they haven’t won the support of many career experts. Katharine Hansen, author of Tell Me About Yourself (today’s the first anniversary of its release), believes there are better ways to make a positive, lasting impression in the job hunt.

“Extreme job-hunting is risky because it smacks of desperation,” Hansen says. “While employers in this economy can understand the desperation, many simply won’t respond favorably to extreme tactics, thus ultimately rendering them less effective.”

Instead, she encourages the job seekers she counsels to stand out through storytelling. “Rather than deploying far-out approaches, job-seekers can turn to a technique almost as old as human history—storytelling. Most job-seekers know they can use stories to respond to interview questions, but they don’t realize they can also apply stories in resumes, cover letters, portfolios and in networking to make themselves memorable and create vivid pictures of their skills and accomplishments.”

According to Hansen, an engaging, articulate story about an actual experience can do a handful of things a sandwich board or singing telegram cannot, including:

• Establish your identity
• Reveal your personality
• Boost your confidence
• Make you memorable
• Establish trust
• Illustrate your potential
• Provide explanations
• Reveal your response to change
• Demonstrate your communication skills

“Consider that many job seekers vying for the same position you seek probably have qualifications that are similar to yours. But will they be describing those qualifications to employers in evocative story form? Probably not. If you do, you’ll distinguish yourself from those who seek to sell themselves to employers in less engaging ways,” notes Hansen.

Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). The author, Katharine Hansen, is immediately available for print, broadcast and online interviews. To speak with her, contact Selena Dehne.

JIST Publishing is the leading publisher of job search, career, and occupational information materials. As America’s Career Publisher, JIST has helped millions of people focus their education and career goals to achieve success in the world of work and beyond. JIST’s authors are the nation’s leading experts in the fields of job search and career information.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

Peter Vogt, a prolific and highly respected voice in the college career-counseling realm, has called Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career the “Darkhorse Career Book of 2009.”

In the November 2009 issue of Campus Career Counselor, Vogt writes about the book’s “innovative approach, its content (especially its many document and story examples), and Hansen’s clear passion for helping job seekers succeed.”

You can read the full review: Review of Tell Me About Yourself

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

Interrupting the serialization of Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career to announce the exciting news that corporate-communications media producer, author, and speaker Thomas Clifford has included the book on his Top 10 Books of 2009.

Here’s what he said about the book:

Want to learn how to use stories in your career, in your job search and anywhere else, for that matter? Storytelling proponent Kathy Hansen has written a super user-friendly guide to navigate you through the storytelling waters.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.